Olympic Games (2008)

Li Yue/Associated Press

After nearly seven years and billions of dollars spent on preparation, the Olympic Games began in Beijing on Aug. 8, 2008.

The International Olympic Committee had awarded the Games to Beijing on July 13, 2001, despite much dissent. Critics said China's record of human rights abuses should have excluded it from consideration. But Olympic officials wanted to give China a chance to change, while the world watched. So Beijing was selected over Toronto by two votes.

During the Games, China was not free of violence and dissent, but the few incidents were overshadowed by record-setting athletic feats. The hope, however, that the Games would lead to a more open Chinese society has not been realized. The influx of foreigners and the prestige of holding the Games have not led China's leaders to relax their tight grip on political expression.

The astonishing opening ceremonies lavished grand tribute on Chinese civilization and sought to stir an ancient nation's pride. There was also a message for an uncertain outside world: Do not worry. We mean no harm.

During the Games, many Olympic and world records were shattered. The swimmer Michael Phelps of the United States garnered eight gold medals, breaking Mark Spitz's 36-year-old record of seven.

Jamaica's Usain Bolt became the first man to win both the 100- and 200-meter dashes at the same Olympics since Carl Lewis in 1984.

For the most part, illegal performance enhancing drugs were not an issue.

In a rare incident of violence during the Games, the father-in-law of American volleyball coach Hugh McCutcheon was stabbed to death at a popular Beijing tourist site.

On the first weekend of the Olympics, five people were killed after a violent confrontation in western China's tense Xinjiang region in which the police fired on assailants who had attacked a police station with homemade bombs, the state media reported. Just before the games, the authorities said two Uighur militants attacked a police station in the Xinjiang city of Kashgar, killing 16 paramilitary police and wounding 16 others.

Though Beijing officials designated an area for legal demonstrations, many people have been punished for submitting applications to hold a protest. A few would-be demonstrators have simply disappeared, at least for the duration of the Games.

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October 16, 2012, Tuesday

A 2008 Olympic race walk champion said he was excluded from the London Games after failing a doping test; a champion French sprint cyclist was upset; officials marked the 40th anniversary of the Munich attacks.

August 4, 2012, Saturday

A 17-year-old man who told the British Olympic diver Tom Daley on Twitter that he disappointed his late father by failing to win an Olympic medal was arrested on "suspicion of malicious communications."

The firm of architects whose design for Japan's new Olympic stadium was scrapped offer their version of what went wrong with the project - saying warnings on cost overruns were ignored. Ciara Lee reports.